Boston bombing suspects are Chechen-origin brothers

Washington, April 19 (IANS) The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, one of whom was killed and the other is on the loose, are brothers of Chechen origin -- with at least one a legal permanent resident of the US, according to various media reports.

The suspect at large was identified Friday as 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, born in Kyrgyzstan, holding a Massachusetts driver's licence and living in the Boston suburb of Cambridge, NBC News reported citing law enforcement officials.

He was the suspect in the white hat in surveillance photos released by the FBI from the marathon bombings that killed three people and wounded over 180.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's brother, who was killed in a firefight with law enforcement, was identified as 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, born in Russia.

He became a legal permanent resident in 2007, officials said. He was the suspect in the black hat in the FBI photos, NBC said.

Both men were believed to have military experience, and to have entered the country with their family in 2002 or 2003, when the family sought asylum, the channel said.

The nature of the military experience was not clear. Later in the morning, US Army officials told NBC knows that no one matching either name had served in the active-duty Army, or the reserves.

The city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a $2,500 scholarship toward college in 2011, according to The Boston Globe.

The scholarships were for students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, part of the Cambridge public school system.

A Maryland man who said he was the suspects' uncle told CNN affiliate WBZ that Tamerlan Tsarnaev "got what he deserved".

"What can I say for people who have been murdered? Sympathy," said Ruslan Tsarni, referring to those who died in the bombings at the Boston Marathon.

The brothers came from the Russian Caucasus and had moved to Kazakhstan at a young age before coming to the US several years ago, CNN said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)